


Mea Culpa

by Spannah339



Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who & Related Fandoms, Doctor Who (1963)
Genre: Angst, Frienship relationships, Gen, Heart-to-Heart
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-30
Updated: 2017-05-30
Packaged: 2018-11-06 19:23:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 702
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11042682
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Spannah339/pseuds/Spannah339
Summary: "Mea culpa is a Latin phrase that means "through my fault" and is an acknowledgement of having done wrong."The Doctor and Nyssa both carry guilt.





	Mea Culpa

**Author's Note:**

> This has been floating around for a while, inspired partly from reading Tegan's wiki page and learning that the Doctor used to hide from her in the cloister room. And since listening to a few audio dramas with just Five and Nyssa, I felt the need to explore their relationship a little deeper.

Nyssa found him in the cloister room. He was sitting on the stairs, staring at the eye of harmony in the centre of the room. He looked up as Nyssa entered the large room and seemed relieved to see it was her.

  Nyssa could tell he needed some company at the moment. So, she crossed the room to join him.

  “Hello Nyssa,” the Doctor said, smiling at her. He seemed happy enough, but Nyssa could tell there was something bothering him. After a second’s consideration, she decided that it would be best to be subtle.

  “Hiding from Tegan?” she asked, smiling and sitting beside him.

  “Thinking,” the Doctor replied, slightly indignantly. Then he smiled sheepishly and added, “And yes, perhaps I am hiding from Tegan.”  
   
   “It is good to have her back,” Nyssa said. “Even though she can be very difficult.”

  They were silent for a long moment, enjoying each other company. Before Tegan had left, it would have been a slightly awkward silence, but after it was just the two of them, they had both become more comfortable in each other’s company, forming a strong friendship.

  Eventually, Nyssa decided that subtlety wasn’t getting her anywhere, and asked, “Is something wrong, Doctor?”

   He sighed, shifting his weight.

  “I’ve been thinking. No one has ever come back before.” Nyssa nodded, sensing he had more to say.

   “I made a promise once,” he said quietly. “And I still haven’t kept it. I promised someone close to me I would come back. But I haven’t returned. I keep putting it off – I have a time machine, I can see her anytime I want. I’m beginning to wonder if I’ll ever go back.”

   He turned to look at Nyssa, his too old eyes staring out at her from a young face.

   “Because when I leave someone behind, I never go back.”

  “Even if you don’t mean to?” Nyssa asked. The Doctor nodded, turning to face the eye of harmony again.

  “Even if I don’t want to.”

  Again, they were quiet. This time it was the Doctor who broke the silence. 

  “I think she’s still angry at me,” he said softly.

  “For leaving her?” Nyssa asked, already knowing that wasn’t what he meant. With a shake of his head, he confirmed her thoughts.

  “She’s right to be angry though.”  
  
  “It wasn’t your fault, Doctor,” Nyssa said.

  “I left him. I left him and he _died_. It was my fault.”

  “No. You couldn’t do anything. It wasn’t anyone’s fault.” She lowered her head, staring at the steps below her. She really should listen to her own advice. But however hard she tried, she couldn’t shake the guilt clinging to her.

   “I keep thinking of ways I could have saved him. I keep thinking of how I left him. And I understand why Tegan is angry.”  
   
  Nyssa sighed. “We can’t carry the blame for everyone we couldn't save.” _Listen to what you’re saying Nyssa,_ she told herself angrily. But she still felt the guilt.  

  “But I do,” the Doctor said, so quietly Nyssa could barely hear him. “I see them all, the UNIT soldier, shot down beside me. The Thal warrior, killed by Daleks. The countless innocents I couldn’t save. Adric. It’s my fault they’re dead.”  
  
  “You can’t save everyone,” Nyssa said quietly. She carried her own guilt – her survivor’s guilt. She lived while her whole planet had been wiped out. And she hadn’t been able to do anything but watch.

  “I think Tegan feels guilty as well,” she added. “That’s why she’s angry. She doesn’t want to feel the guilt so she takes it out on you.

  “We all feel guilty Doctor, that doesn’t mean we’re to blame. Sometimes bad things happen.”  
  
  “I know. Everything has its time and everything dies.”  
  
  Nyssa nodded, falling silent. She still dreamt of Traken dying, of her father’s body – stolen. She still wept, silently, in the comfort of the darkness of her room for those she had lost. She would always feel guilty. And she knew the Doctor would as well. Only he would carry that guilt with him long after she was dead and her burden lifted from her shoulders.

  “Sometimes we just have to learn to live with the guilt.”


End file.
